Skip to main content
Main

Hash a LA Provencale

A hearty hash of beef, mutton, pork, and bacon cooked slowly with onions, parsley, thyme, and pepper, served with sliced potatoes and optional vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Hash a LA Provencale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hash together the beef, mutton, pork, bacon, parsley, onion, thyme, and pepper.

  2. Mould the mixture into a bowl shape and place it in a stew pan.

  3. Make a hole in the center to shape it like a crown.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook slowly for 2 hours.

  2. Halfway through cooking, add the sliced potatoes and optional vegetables around the crown.

  3. Once cooked, remove excess fat and serve with the vegetables arranged around the crown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main meat structure and rich, savoury flavour as it slowly cooks.
Mutton
Adds deeper, richer meat flavour and firm texture to the hash.
Fresh pork
Contributes fat and moisture, keeping the slow-cooked meat tender and juicy.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty flavour and renders fat that enriches the dish.
Potatoes
Absorb cooking juices and fat, becoming tender and savoury around the meat.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 2 hours. Low, gentle heat lets the tough meat cuts break down and become tender without drying out. Rushing with high heat toughens the proteins and can scorch the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mutton, pork, parsley, thyme, pepper, potato):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, pork, parsley, thyme, pepper, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipes